Almasy's Autumn
by Miki-Death-Strike
Summary: They had grown up together, and now she's gone. They played childish games with each other, and now death has grasped her. He loved her, but now, she has fallen into eternal sleep.


Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, but I do wish I worked with its creators! 

Introduction: This is just a one shot I thought up while singing Ready Steady Go! Weird, huh? Well, hope you enjoy it! The story doesn't quite fit the time-line of the game, so I guess it's slightly AU?

**Almasy's Autumn**

Even when she yelled his name, he wouldn't stop running from her. His grin widened and his speed quickened. The pale amber of dying leaves descended from the chilled branches of slumbering trees; a sign of the coming winter. This was fall's peak. It was so glamourous, having an abundance of amber and burning orange coloring. But when he reached the woods, the colors seemed to fade into the dull depths of a cemetery, the falling leaves giving little gloss to the place.

Puffs of white breath escaped his paling lips as his feet crushed the small twigs and wood which lay scattered above the tinted soil. He had no time to relish in the beauty of the outside Autumn. He had to get away from her beckoning.

_I think I was fifteen then. . . . That was when I first met her. It was the same year of my "Great Escape" from the orphanage; the same orphanage we used to grow up in._

"Seifer! Slow down! You're only making it worse, jackass!" But he wasn't listening, and she knew it. She had chased him into the hollow of the woods, and being alone was starting to frighten her.

Her caretaker told her not to venture too far from the orphanage, especially now that a violent storm was underway, but she needed and wanted to see him.

Her leather boots came to a halt as she squeezed both her arms to her abdomen. The cold seemed to penetrate through her wool and seep into her bones. She watched the leafless trees above, and they appeared to point to the grey beyond.

Distant howls echoed to her and she convinced herself that it was just the rolling of the wind. Her eyes were transfixed unto the gloomy heavens, they always captivated her. And now that she had finally made it to the outside, enjoying the skies almost made her forget about Seifer and the reason she sought him.

"Why in the hell are you following me?" he asked, pulling her nose down so that her aureate orbs absorbed his stoic expression. He felt her shiver under his frigid fingers, then his reflexes acted quickly as she swatted his finger away, anger now displaying within her amber eyes.

"Don't do that, jackass!" Seifer chuckled, his blonde forelocks swaying with the frozen zephyrs. The woods held solitude and tranquility within it, but the silence was becoming unbearable for her.

Spinning her boots around, the girl folded her chilly upper limbs, her sable braids following her movements.

_It was becoming a daily routine. I'd wait in the woods until she spotted me from the orphanage, then she'd do the predictable: chase after me. I guess she still had a grudge against me because I had stolen her most prized possession for quick money-making._

"I hope you know that I don't care about that stupid pendant anymore." That sweet voice spoke again. Her face still didn't bother to face him, and that was evident enough: she was lying to him.

"Then why are you still chasing me," the boy simply inquired. The girl was still.

"Matron wants you to come back. . . ." She faced him now, her expression persistent. It was his turn to become silent. She knew he hated when she talked about his former caretaker. "She thinks it was her fault that you left." The boy was still silent. His pale emerald eyes weren't focused unto her, although they were watching her face. His orbs seemed to be visually replaying the night he had ran away from his only home. ". . . Why did you leave?"

"Shut up," he spoke, his annoyance shaping his command. "It was two months ago. Who the hell cares what I do? Damn, it's my own life."

The girl's arms were relocated to the back of her and her fingers were locked with each other. She stepped forward, bending a bit to see what Seifer was mentally studying.

"I care." Her tone was a whisper, and she wasn't sure if he heard her or not. The male teen drew back.

"Shut up, Autumn. Go back to your home, I think I hear mother calling." He then walked into the misty distance, slowly dispersing from the woods. Though his pace was slow, she did not follow him. She didn't call his name, and she didn't watch him leave. But she did murmur the words: It's both our lives, Seifer.

_I saw her again later that same night. It was odd to see her in that pearly nightgown, seated on the damp ground. I remember the way the moon broke from the cloudy night and shone down on her. I figured she expected me to come to her and apologize. I didn't. I didn't even go to her. I could only stare. To this day, I don't know whether it was fear, or just plain stubbornness. We eventually met up again a year later at a military prep-school. Boy was I surprised. We both had done some growing, physically and relationship-wise._

"Girls like you don't belong in the military." He sat aloft on one of the school's gate which separated the city from the learning area. He was crouched down precariously on the flat surface of the gate. Autumn was placed next to him, but she preferred to be the safe one. She leaned unto the barrier and straightened the ruffles of her lazuline uniform.

"What do you mean by that, jackass? I've already proven my skills and I think they're considering."

"You still call me that, huh?" For a moment, Autumn had been lost in her thoughts of the many vigorous days of training she had endured. When he asked her that question, it had brought her back to the present.

She faced Seifer, and saw that his features had matured and that he appeared to be more of a man than the boy she had met a year ago.

"Well, you are a jackass. And you'll always be one." Autumn watched her orphanage mate jump from the steel gate.

"Still mad about that? Then here, your pendant. It wasn't worth anything." The teen tossed the jewel pendant which resembled that of a crimson cross-shaped dagger.

Her slender fingers grasped the chained dagger. She studied the necklace and squeezed it between her hands. "You goddamned jackass! Why in the hell did you keep it so long?" Her thin legs protruded from the gate and she thrust the pendant into his face.

"You got it back, so be happy. . . . I'm outta' here." With a wave of his hand, Seifer dismissed the fuming teen. He tucked his hands into his pocket and left.

"Wait! Where are you going, jackass!"

_The both of us made it out of the military prep-school. We had been transported to the real military school. Even then, Autumn was a real pain in the ass, but I found myself indulging more into the time we spent together. Never did we grow apart. Of course, I was still a jackass to her. I never appreciated what I had._

_She stayed in contact with Matron, and she kept telling me about how much the orphanage had changed. It was as if she wanted me to go back and apologize. I thought that I never would go back there._

_I invited Autumn over to my place during our short holiday._

"Why didn't you go to Matron's for the holiday?" Seifer queried. He came back from the diminutive kitchen area and tossed Autumn the silver spoon she requested.

Seifer's pillow was comfortably tucked under her throat, and her feet were swinging high into the air as she took her first scoop of hot cocoa. The bowl moved slightly when Seifer threw down a quilt from the adjacent closet. Autumn watched him close the white door.

"Hey, be careful," she spoke.

"Shut up and answer my question." The teen then moved to the window and watched the void streets of Balamb fill up with dusty snow.

"Centra is too far from here, and I don't have the money to go." Autumn was eyeing her cocoa as she explained to him her reason for having no where else to go for the holiday. Clad in one of Seifer's sweat pants and her own grey and pink knee-length socks, the black sweater she wore contrasted with her choice of pants and socks. "Xu's going away for the holiday so I can't crash with her- -"

"- -So you settled for the jackass, huh?" His tone didn't sound like he was disappointed, it sounded as if he were mocking her. "Who would have guessed that you'd be with an enemy on a spend-time-with-your-family holiday?"

". . . You are family." Seifer broke eye contact from her bright orbs. They had that beautiful golden tint to them, and they were becoming hard to escape. Shutting the chalky curtains, Seifer walked back to the kitchen.

Minutes had passed before he came from the kitchen, and the silence was still there.

"You _are_ family." Those words stayed with me, even now. It was true. She was my only family only because I chose her to be. She had crept her way into my life and back then, I just thought that what I felt for her was nothing more than pity. I thought that because she wanted me as her family, she was an idiot. I should have yelled to her that she didn't need a family, but I didn't. I'm glad I didn't.

The apartment's window rattled when the winds of the night assaulted it. The silence was deafening. It should have been a perfect sound, but Autumn found that not true. Silence was hurting her ears as well as her own thoughts. They were so loud and uncomfortable. She could only watch the closed curtains and the ebony shadows of the snow fall.

Seifer had made his bed on the floor in silence. He had cleaned her bowl in silence. He watched television with her in silence, but he laughed at the comical parts of the horror movie they watched. Did she upset him? Did saying that he was her family insult him in some way?

Guilt engulfed her heart, and she couldn't help but feel like the jackass. She was sleeping in his bed, eating his food, and wearing his clothes. He had been so generous, yet she ended up upsetting him.

The tears refused to be held back and they burned. Her desperation wasn't strong enough to overcome her sorrow. She tried to think that she disappointed Seifer so that the pain inside would cease. His silence had upset her, not the fact that she had upset him. Her tears fell for that reason. She had confided in him. She informed him that he was her family, but he said and did nothing to assure her that he felt the same way. His brutal silence was what she went by.

Her own sniffle startled her, then she heard Seifer's sleepy voice from below.

"Go to sleep," he told her. Autumn moved her body to the edge of the bed.

"I can't. I have to ask you something."

"Go to sleep," he repeated. She ignored his command and continued.

"When I go, will you follow?"

"I don't know. Go to sleep"

_Toward the last night of our vacation, we made love. Our relationship was beginning to become serious. I guess that was what scared her away. It was pretty scary for me too. She left her pendant on my counter and I never heard from her again since that night. She had dropped out of military school. I visited our orphanage some time after her disappearance. And well . . ._

"See what happens when you bully someone else?" She still had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, even when she pretended to be mad at the child who was misbehaving. Autumn placed a bandage unto the child's elbow. She kissed his forehead and told him to stop his sobbing.

Looking to her left, the opened door that she thought was one of the orphaned children's doing, let glamourous light of the sun into the playhouse. A silhouetted figure stood between the threshold and the outside and she instantly knew who was there.

"Jackass!" It was a force of the tongue when she yelled his nickname. The teen didn't hold his arms out to welcome, he didn't even grin. But she knew he was happy to see her. When she nearly raced over to him, he shoved her pendant into her face, stopping her advancements toward him.

"You left this, Autumn. I told you, it's worthless. I don't want it." She wasn't listening. Her arms were already flailing for him. Her tears were rolling, and her heart was pounding heavily into her ears. Being away from him had done her no good. She found herself seeing him in her sleep and not wanting to wake up. She thought that by keeping her distance, her anger would wane. But the night she left, her anger was no more. It was fear that kept her running. But now, she could care less. Seifer had pained her, but he also cured her.

Her small biceps squeezed his smooth neck as she buried her head into him. She needed to smell his scent. She needed to drink in his masculinity. She needed to feel his heart beating beneath her own.

She kissed his neck for the umpteenth time and slowly separated from him, already feeling cold without his warmth.

_Yeah. I was happy as hell to see her again. But I couldn't stay. Not at Matron's orphanage where she worked. I didn't belong at an orphanage I had run away from. I never tried to convince her to come back to the military as much as I wanted to. When I did leave, she forced me to take her pendant. I did. She knew where I was most of the time, as I knew where she was. That was how we stayed in contact. Before I left, she asked me that question again: "When I go, will you follow?" I never answered her. But now . . ._

The sleeves of his grey trench coat had been customly made, having two carmine daggers on either side so that he wouldn't have to carry around her worthless pendant.

The granite gravestone became sleek under the falling rain and the bold letters he read carefully glistened. The crimson pendant, draped upon the tombstone, quivered as short zephyrs passed through.

Being buried in The Flower Field of Hope had been a promise kept by Matron and himself. She had once told Seifer that she wanted her resting place to be where her earliest days were spent; Matron's Orphanage.

The virus of a sorceress; that was what killed her. A sorceress she had befriended passed her sickness and Autumn couldn't live with the burden of being the epitome of peril and disaster. Had I learned of her depression sooner, I doubt she'd be in this foolish eternal sleep.

Each time Fall passed by, he'd visit her grave and reminisce on memories that would never become evanescent. Here, at Autumn's grave was where he'd spend most of his time during the first few days of Autumn.

_"When I go, will you follow?" Thinking back to those times we had when she'd ask me that strange question, what I wanted to say to her was that . . ._

Shouldering his jacket and wiping the damp hairs blocking his vision, Seifer watched the delicate sunlight break through the parting haze.

"Yeah, Autumn. I'll be there. All you have to do is wait," he finally answered. He left the sight just as the rain began to fall more forcefully.

A/N: Did ya' like? Well, leave some reviews and tell me what you think, k? Well. I'll see you!


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